By Korede James
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President Ibrahim Gusau has revealed that the new Super Eagles head coach will soon be announced.
Following the resignation of Finidi George mid-2024, NFF Technical Director Austin Eguavoen has been in charge of the Super Eagles on an interim basis.
The former international led the Super Eagles to qualify for the AFCON 2025 billed for Morocco.
Despite Eguavoen securing the ticket for this year’s AFCON, the NFF has declared the Eagles coaching position vacant.
“Nigerians will know the coach of the Super Eagles very soon,” Gusau said in an interview on NFF TV. “The Technical Committee sat on Thursday to discuss it and I’m just waiting for their report.
“If we go through the report, with the approval of the board, then we move on. Definitely, Nigerians will know who will steer the affairs of the team going into the World Cup qualifiers.”
When asked to give a hint on the nationality of the new Super Eagles coach, Gusau declined.
“I cannot preempt the colour of the coach because as I’ve said earlier the Technical Committee sat on this issue and, in the applications for the job, there are black and white individuals
“So we will wait for the recommendation of the committee and it is only their recommendation that we will look at and send it out.
“But the thing is that it’s going to be very soon because we are all concerned and we want whoever is going to take charge of the team to start immediately.”
The NFF president stated that whoever is appointed the new coach would also be in charge of the Super Eagles B team.
“We’ve come up with the policy that whoever is going to manage the Super Eagles would be the one to manage the home-based Eagles,” he said.
“So, you can’t be given an opportunity to manage a team comprising of all home-based players and at the end of the tournament you come and tell us that you don’t see one or two players who can be injected into the senior national team.”
He explained that the home-based Eagles’ win against Ghana in the CHAN 2024 qualifiers, shows there is still hope for Nigerian football.
“A lot of people believe there’s hope in Nigerian football after the home-based Eagles beat Ghana, because we actually saw the Nigerian spirit in the boys especially thr match in Uyo,” Gusau said.
“Also, people are just talking about what happened in Uyo but they don’t talk about what happened in Accra, it was not easy to get a draw there.”
On preparation for the home-based Eagles ahead of this year’s CHAN, Gusau said: “We want them to have a place where they can be fully camped and settle without distractions.
“They will spend about two weeks then from there we will look for a venue where we will take them for foreign camping and give them quality friendly matches before they will move to the venue of the tournament.
“So, we are very much aware of our responsibility and we are ready to make sure we give them all the preparation they deserve.”
The CHAN tournament is scheduled for February 1 to February 28 in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
